Denmark's delights

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I'm really getting behind with this blog so I'm going to condense our time so far in Denmark into this one blog today. We have been enjoying the hospitality of my cousin Tove. Tove is one of 5 siblings whose father and my father were brothers. Tove lives in the most idyllic home and garden in a setting which you would swear was way out in the countryside but incredibly she lives only 9 km from Aarhus which is the next biggest city after Copenhagen. Tove has a lovely house set in a beautiful garden which she maintains all herself. Every day we eat produce from the garden, she has apple and plum trees, a sizeable vegie garden and a chook pen with one rooster and 5 hens.

When we first arrived we caught up with Aunt Nethe (Tove's mum) at the aged care facility where she has a neat little unit surrounded by flowers and shrubs. It was great to see Nethe again, she is personality plus. The next day was an excursion with Tove into Aarhus to see the Botanic Gardens and the new conservatory, a modern building which has been divided into climate zones with plants from around the world. There is a wooden tower in the tropical zone which we climbed and had a view over the exotic plants. After lunch we visited "Den Gamle By" (the old town) something along the lines of Sovereign Hill with buildings portraying life in the 1800s. Weather was sunny and warm and it was a lovely day out.

That evening Tove had invited family to dinner and there was 15 of us seated around the table enjoying roast duck, pork and beef along with delicious salads and home grown potatoes, traditional aeblekage (apple cake) for dessert and Danish pastry with coffee. It was a great evening with lots of talk and good food and after dinner, as is the tradition with this side of the family, the song books come out and we all sing. I know a few Danish songs but can read it well enough to join in with those I don't know. Family are very good at speaking English so John is not left out. We felt so welcomed and part of this group of happy people.

Friday we visited cousin Bodil and her husband Peter in their home. We admired their garden and I helped harvest plums from her very abundant plum tree. We enjoyed coffee and Danish pastry. Bodil is very artistic and her home is decorated with many of her own paintings. We then continued on to aunt Nethe's for lunch. Pickled and salted herrings, pressed meat, rye bread, and John partook of a couple of glasses of Aquavit (also known as snaps and not for the faint hearted!). John was invited to accompany my cousin Michael to see some Danish building sites while Tove and I went to the cemetery where uncle Peter is buried . Danish grave sites are beautifully kept.

On Saturday John and I took a trip into the city of Aarhus where we visited the Occupation Museum which details the Danish resistance movement in WWII. We saw a bride coming out of the cathedral in the centre of town (she was jolly lucky with the weather because it was raining buckets a couple of hours later), we did a bit of shopping, lunched at a nice restaurant where the waitresses wanted to talk about Australia and then John couldn't resist a go at the Casino. Very different from Crown in Melbourne. For starters you have to pay to go in, check your jacket at the door and during the day it was almost deserted. No luck there.

For the evening we had been invited to a birthday party for one of Tove's "borrowed" grandchildren. Her name is Yaya her mum is Danish and dad is Kenyan. They had invited all Yaya's classmates to an overnight in a nearby park. I have often noticed that Danes have a very different attitude to risk. Kids aged around 11 arrived at 6pm. How many reasons would this not happen in Australia? Open water at the park, only 2 adults to supervise 17 kids, free to run and play over a wide forested area, Thomas (Yaya's dad) is wielding a machete to cut up firewood and allows kids to use it, also provides sharp hand knife to the kids so they can sharpen a stick for cooking marshmallows later on and kids will spend the night in open huts. I wonder if we spend too much time protecting kids from risk rather than teaching them how to handle it?

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Photos

Tropical zone
View from the tower

Den Gamle By
The Old Town

Whose idea was it to put that multi-storey eye sore behind this lovely old town?